Magyk

Magyk: Septimus Heap, Book One
Angie Sage
Harper Collins, 2005

The Magyk series by Angie Sage feels not so much a book series but sort of a book-and-stuff-selling enterprise -- at least that's the feel I get from the website and such. I knew this going into it -- and that was actually part of why I went ahead and pulled the first book in the series off the shelf at ye olde publik library. It was just one of those books I had been seeing for a long time but never quite reading. Certain things attracted me to the book -- it's a small format but very thick book, with a perfectly nice cover (jacket) illustration, and was clearly about magical kids and such. Certain other things really put me off -- spelling the word "magic" with a "y" (which remained terribly annoying throughout the book, mainly because the author felt the need to put certain words such as "magyk" in bold font all through the book), the whole marketing enterprise, and the never-ending series thing. But, hey, worth a shot!

So, my general assessment is (if I read just as a stand-alone book and not part of a bigger publishing cash-cow, and I ignore the formattting stuff that I hated), it's fine but not stellar. The setting is a very typical medieval-esque to semi-dark ages kind of place with the typical geographic elements (bogs, swamps, rivers, sea, castle, village, forest) and it has the typical fantasy elements (white/dark magic, odd creatures, slow means of travel, lots of cheese and bread). The core plot -- dark forces supplant the queen and try to diminish the power of anyone but themselves, strongly magical orphaned boy along with a cast of characters thwarts the dark forces -- is as generic, typical, derivative, boring as it gets. So it's all about how it gets pulled off in terms of writing, character, etc. The devil is in the details, as in all things. Many of the details are great -- some of the creatures, some of the back story, the cool boat at the end of the book -- but not all. The book suffered from a slow start, but picked up. By the halfway point, I was trying to sneak in reading as much as I could throughout a busy weekend. So that's how I end up figuring that it's a good book -- I really wanted to see what would happen, even though I more or less knew what would happen.

One thing that I have to remember when I am reading (and reviewing!) middle-grade fiction is that kids actually like predictability. And they get just as much a thrill out of figuring out what's going to happen as adults do when they read. So I am going to try not to fault this book for being utterly and completely predictable. I knew in Chapter 1 who the babies were and what the outcome would be. Despite some attempts at subterfuge, I knew who Boy 412 was as soon as we were introduced to the character. But maybe younger kids would need a few more chapters to get there, and maybe even delight in the process. Older kids might find it a little predictable, but I am not sure. Would my 7 year old like it? No. He's too young to follow the intricacies of the story line. Would he like it in a few years? Maybe, but he's a pretty literal kid, and likes science stuff so much, that I expect fantasy literature won’t be his thing.

There are lots of reviews out there -- a popular book that has been around for a good long while, so that's no surprise -- and the mainstream ones all seem positive. Read any of these (Kirkus, Publisher's Weekly, NY times, etc.) to get the nice summaries and flowery language to describe the book.

http://www.septimusheap.com/ (warning - a flash-heavy but content-light website)